Tag Archives: #FOWC

Intervening with the Solstice

Intervening with the Solstice

They’re intervening with the solstice. We’re requiring more light,
though adding one more month to summer simply isn’t right.
They’ll put a manmade light up in the sky next to the sun.
We’ll have summer the whole year through once mankind is done!
Next, they’ll augment infinity and make the rain much wetter.
There’s nothing like a mortal man for making nature better!

For another poem on the subject of the solstice, go HERE.

The prompts are solstice, intervene and infinity.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/21/rdp-friday-solstice/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/21/fowc-with-fandango-intervene/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/21/infinity/

Your Dishwasher’s Advocate

 


Your Dishwasher’s Advocate

Cycle after cycle, they clean our dirty dishes
yet do we ever think about acceding to their wishes?
Maybe they, too, have appetites, and I sometimes think perhaps,
they were patiently waiting for their favorite scraps.

A bit of rich spaghetti sauce, a dollop of our mousse,
a little bit of buttered bread or rib eye’s savory juice
might have fulfilled their evening’s dreams or might have made their day,
But instead we diligently swab it all away!

No rich reward for faithful servants waiting for our scraps.
No satifsfactory searches for tidbits left in gaps.
And so they go another day, our faithful old machines,
without a taste of hamburgers or beets or nectarines.

They cannot live on water alone. Those soapsuds have no savor.
And so the next time when you scrape, please do your pal a favor.
Leave a few scraps on the plate. Don’t clean too well those tines.
Think about your faithful friend who oh too rarely dines.

Leave your dishwasher a tip—something on which to sup.
Leave wine dregs in your goblets and leave them facing up!
Leave rice grains in your rice bowl. Do not clear that sauce away.

Being less efficient, will make your Maytag’s day.

If your wife makes a kerfuffle over the job you do,
remind her it is you that’s here scraping off the goo.
Take her by the shoulders and deflect her view.
Your dishwasher is grateful for it every time you do!

 

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/16/fowc-with-fandango-cycle/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/16/wish/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/16/your-daily-word-prompt-kerfuffle-December-16-2018/

Home Plate: Sweet Victory

It’s hot summer in the teeming city with tenements piled room-on-room. With narrow hallways and nonexistent grassy plots, where’s  a kid to play?

 

Home Plate: Sweet Victory

They’re playing baseball in the street again, forcing cars to wait,
restless in the intersection, ’til they see the fate
of the ball the bat just cracked, rising in the air
to land in someone’s flower pot or on the tenement stair.
They make such a brouhaha, loud boys and louder cars,
that Grandma rises up a bit to clutch at window bars.

It is a large commitment, for she can’t sit down again
without some help, but still she is attracted by the din.
Are car horns blaring  for the inconvenience or a homer?
The batter’s mad dash down the street and back a slight misnomer,
for first base is the red car and second base the yellow.
Cross the street and third base is the stair stoop of the fellow

who exits from his doorway, briefcase in his hand,
who seems in a great hurry and yet chooses to stand
to see the runner execute his skipping zigzag run
homeward toward the batter’s plate that holds a sticky bun.
Horns blaring as he executes his mission, ends his flight,
bends over, grabs his trophy, and takes his winning bite!

 

Prompt words today were play, intersection, commitment and brouhaha.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/15/rdp-saturday-play/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/15/fowc-with-fandango-intersection/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/15/commitment/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/15/your-daily-word-prompt-brouhaha-December-15-2018/

No Energy

No Energy

When he made his overture on electronic media,
it read as though he’d copied it from an encyclopedia.
Each sentence was incongruous with the one before,
his transitions nonexistent and his details all a bore.
He was indubitably boring, so she gave the guy a miss.
Judging by his message, imagining his kiss.

The prompts today are overture, electric, incongruous and indubitable.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/14/rdp-friday-overture/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/14/fowc-with-fandango-electric/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/14/incongruous/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/14/your-daily-word-prompt-indubitable-December-14-2018/

Heavenly Retirement

Heavenly Retirement

She was the center of attention, a magical surprise.
She rivaled Cleopatra both in manner and in guise.
Her courtiers all fumbled in their desire to please her.
Her courters milled and tumbled in their urgent need to squeeze her.
For she knew well the subterfuge of makeup and of dressing
to keep all of her paramours both interested and guessing.

A masterpiece of camouflage, she dressed to win their favor—
the cynosure of attention who changed in age and flavor

from audience to audience—one day serene and regal,
the next day fluffy as whipped cream, appearing barely legal.
She kept admirers captive for so many years
that she outlived all her children and outlived all her peers.

But when at last she succumbed to inevitable fate,
making her grand entrance through that pearly gate,
all the hosts of heaven bowed down to all her glory
having no idea how wrinkled and how gory
she was beneath her raiment and the mask that met their eyes.
It was only the next morning that they saw through her disguise.

For alas, on trips to heaven, carry-ons are not allowed
and responsibility for checked bags disavowed.
So she arrived without her makeup, her wigs and all the stuff
she’d used throughout her lifetime to powder, paint and buff
herself to fine perfection. Without her wigs and clothes,
she had no other choice except to finally disclose

that she was just the girl next door—albeit so much older—
her visage creased and wrinkled, stooped over at the shoulder.
Her breasts were much deflated and her color merely sallow.
Without the false eyelashes, her eyes were strangely shallow.
And as she looked into the mirror, she finally faced the facts.
She could sink into her rocking chair and finally relax!

 

The prompt words today are fumble, magical, masterpiece and cynosure. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/12/13/rdp-thursday-fumble/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/12/13/fowc-with-fandango-magical/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/12/13/masterpiece/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/12/13/your-daily-word-prompt-cynosure-December-13-2018/

The Beard

 

I’ve always loved beards.  When my husband Bob shaved his off as a surprise after 12 years of marriage, I didn’t recognize him when he met me at the door. I thought it was a friend of ours. We went out to a party that night and I introduced him to our friends, who had also never seen him without a beard, as my brother. No one caught on all night long until we started close-dancing.  We got some strange looks before we finally admitted our little joke.  He grew the beard back!!!

 

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/12/fowc-with-fandango-beard/

Trouble Crossing

Trouble Crossing

Fjords, ravines and crevasses are hard enough to cross,
but when it comes to intersections, I am at a loss.
I excel at parallel parking and my merging is just fine,
but when negotiating stop lights, I simply do not shine.

Perhaps it is the colors that I find distracting.
There’s something about yellow that I find too exacting.
Red is most definitive. I know I shouldn’t go.
And green is also clearly meant as a sign to go.

But yellow’s indecisive. Should I go or should I stay?
Should I linger or should I be upon my way?
This solitary factor is what makes me balk.
As a means of transportation, it is true I’d rather walk!!!! 

The prompt words are color, parking, fjord and solitary. Here are the links:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/10/rdp-wednesday-color/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/10/fowc-with-fandango-parking/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/10/fjord/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/06/daily-addictions-2018-week-40/solitary

A Sedative Soliloquy

A Sedative Soliloquy

He was a jovial companion, but his constant burbling ways
inevitably put folks in a protective daze.
So although I’m sure his ego assured him they were rapt,
in fact it was illusion. All too frequently, they napped.

 

Prompt words today (actually, yesterday’s as I’m running late) are burble, illusion, jovial and inevitable. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/06/rdp-saturday-burble/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/06/fowc-with-fandango-illusion/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/06/jovial/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/inevitable

Futile Advice

Futile Advice

Truck trials are enigmatic. I just can’t see their appeal.
Big boys ruining their toys? I want to say, “Get real!”
If one of your life pleasures is to buy things and deplete them,
just buy some triple-decker cones and take them out and eat them!
It’s bound to be much cheaper and it makes a lot less noise,
but I know that you won’t listen. After all, boys will be boys.

 

The prompt words today are truck, trial, enigmatic and deplete. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/05/rdp-friday-truck/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/05/fowc-with-fandango-trial/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/05/enigmatic/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/06/06/welcome-to-daily-addictions/deplete

Anniversary Blunder


Anniversary Blunder

It was an anniversary present for which he must atone
unless he wants to spend next anniversary alone.
When she opened up her gift, the lone words she could muster
were a string of sputterings, followed up by, “Buster!
is this the best  that you could do—a sander, saw and drill?
Shopping at a hardware store’s not anyway to thrill
a wife lusting for jewelry or even an appliance
more within the likelihood of strengthening our alliance!”
He said, “I thought a contrast might bring a little zing
to our romance much more unique than a diamond ring.
Then he led her to the closet and opened up the door
to see her brand new shoe rack built from ceiling to the floor.
New shelves and custom cabinet with jewelry racks and chest,
and then he opened up a drawer to reveal the best
surprise of all the others—left there for her to see—
a note that said, “Another gift. The tools were for me
to build this brand new closet that you’ve hinted at for years.
Here it is, with all my love, admittedly in arrears!
Look in the bottom jewelry drawer if this is not enough.
You’ll find a box there nestled next to your other stuff.”
And there she found the ring she’d wanted, nestled in among
all the gifts he’d bought her since the years when they were young.
Then she had a revelation, embarrassed for her huff,
and said, “Oh dear, you shouldn’t have. The tools were enough!”

The prompt words for today are contrast, hardware, atone and muster.  Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/02/rdp-tuesday-contrast/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/10/02/fowc-with-fandango-hardware/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/02/atone/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/muster